In other words, Aladdin is big, If you’re a quantitative risk specialist, it’s easy to see why you might want to work on it.

Rumour has it that Aladdin has recently made a big hire. Recruiters in NYC tell us that Blackrock has just picked up Michael Turok, an ex-managing director from Merrill Lynch and former head of BAML’s New York quant strategist group. Blackrock declined to comment and Turok didn’t respond to our attempt at contacting him.

What makes Turok’s appointment significant? Firstly, his seniority. Secondly, his history. Turok has spent the past 20 years working on Wall Street’s risk analytics systems. 12 of those were at Goldman Sachs, where he helped build up Goldman’s proprietary risk platform SecDBb. Interestingly, Turok was also one of the first developers to work on Aladdin, back in 1994 when – as a vice president at Blackrock, he worked on the original fixed income analytics at the core of the system.

At Blackrock, Turok is allegedly charged upgrading Aladdin and building a new cross asset risk management and trading system like JPMorgan’s Athena. He may yet be hiring. We don’t have this confirmed by Blackrock, but the space definitely seems worth watching.Follow @MadameButcher